Guantánamo and back: an interview with Moazzam Begg

Former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg is devastatingly reasonable. He is calm, well-spoken, highly articulate, and small; when imprisoned by the US army in Afghanistan, he says, his hands were small enough to slip out of their cuffs when the guards were absent.

Begg was imprisoned for three years without charge or trial. A British citizen, he was picked up by US intelligence officials in Pakistan in January 2002; they accused him of being a member of al-Qaida, which he denies.

At first, Begg was taken to the Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan, where, he says, he went a year without seeing sunlight. From January 2003, he was moved to Guantánamo Bay. Most of his time there was spent in solitary confinement.

The British government brought him back to the UK in January 2005, along with three other British detainees. They were all taken in for questioning at Paddington Green police station – and released within 24 hours. No charges have ever been brought against them.

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